2 May
2024
2 May
'24
7:50 p.m.
The first "professional software" I wrote (almost) out of University in
1979 was a package to emulate the mainframe APL\Plus file primitives on a
CP/M APL variant. Used to facilitate porting of mainframe APL applications
to microcomputers.
I'm still an APL adherent since the late 1960s, but it was probably too
heavy-weight, with obstacles noted elsewhere (character-set, radical
programming paradigm), to be successful in the early days of
microcomputing. Although the MCM-70 was an amazing feat of technology.
Too bad because the language itself lends itself to learning by anyone with
an understanding of high school algebra. Iverson et al started scratching
the surface of introducing computing to elementary/high-school students
using APL with success in the 1970s. I myself learned it as my first
programming language by just reading a book and hacking while in 7th grade.
Further info:
THE USE OF APL IN TEACHING — Software Preservation Group
<https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/apl/Papers/196912_The%20Use%20of%20APL%20In%20Teaching_320-0996-0.pdf/view>
INTRODUCING APL TO TEACHERS — Software Preservation Group
<https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/apl/Papers/197207_Introducing%20APL%20To%20Teachers_320-3014.pdf/view>
APL in Exposition — Software Preservation Group
<https://www.softwarepreservation.org/projects/apl/Papers/197201_APL%20In%20Exposition_320-3010.pdf/view>
Lee Courtney
On Thu, May 2, 2024 at 3:56 AM Liam Proven via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org>
wrote:
On Thu, 2 May 2024 at 00:51, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
--
Lee Courtney
+1-650-704-3934 cell
What would our world be like if the first home computers were to have had
APL, instead of BASIC?
To be perfectly honest I think the home computer boom wouldn't have
happened, and it would have crashed and burned in the 1970s, with the
result that microcomputers remained firmly under corporate control.
I have been watching the APL world with interest since I discovered it
at university, and I still don't understand a word of it.
I've been watching Lisp for just 15 years or so and I find it unreadable
too.
I think there are widely different levels of mental flexibility among
smart humans and one person's "this just requires a small effort but
you get so much in return!" is someone else's eternally impossible,
unclimbable mountain.
After some 40 years in computers now, I still like BASIC best, with
Fortran and Pascal very distant runners-up and everything else from C
to Python is basically somewhere between Minoan Linear A and Linear B
to me.
I think I lack the mental flexibility, and I think I'm better than
most of hoi polloi.
If the early machines had used something cryptic like APL or Forth I
reckon we'd never have had a generation of child programmers.
--
Liam Proven ~ Profile: https://about.me/liamproven
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